It took me a long time to realize that I’d been waiting for a medical label - any label as time went on - to end the catastrophizing. I thought I was developing a pretty good practice, but a few years ago when I developed a debilitating illness that flummoxed a long train of doctors, I couldn’t stop my brain from projecting to worst-case scenes. Even today, I know a swami in Miami who starts each day watching CNN, but he never feels upended like my husband. I first took up mindfulness - where you actively train your mind to notice the sights, smells, and sensations happening in the moment - several decades ago, when I discovered yoga and realized the most adept practitioners weren’t easily flustered by the things I was. This is something I’ve come to understand the hard way.
You might think the daydreamers were the most content, but actually the happiest moments occurred when people focused on the here and now. Several years ago, Harvard scientists asked thousands of people to track their thoughts on a phone app on average, their minds wandered 47 percent of the time - during pretty much everything they were doing, except having sex. Surprisingly, most of us spend little time actually thinking about what’s happening right now.
Mindful mynah how to#
People who have studied how to disconnect our inner peace from the outer reality - everyone from scientists to religious authorities - have discovered that the answer is to keep corralling our leaping thoughts back to the present moment. To truly stay sane, we’ve got to find that calm, soothing center within ourselves. Anyway, a news fast does nothing to quell the angst in your work life and family.
Turning off the television is one way, of course, but the wild world somehow still seeps into our lives, via conversations, social media, or overhearing the political arguments regularly breaking out everywhere. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we keep our inner peace no matter what’s going on in our lives - or in the country - since it’s the topic of my latest novel. “It’s giving me heart palpitations to see all the craziness in Washington.”
Mindful mynah tv#
“I don’t want to watch TV news anymore,” my current-events-junkie husband said to me the other day.
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